"Born to Fly" reads the tattoo on 43-year-old Felix Baumgartner's arm. When he steps off the ledge of his capsule Tuesday morning, 120,000 feet above Earth, he will be flying faster than the speed of sound. His body will go from zero to 690 mph in 34 seconds, and he will be supersonic for almost a minute – free-falling for 5 minutes and 35 seconds.

"Born to Fly" isn't just his mantra. Baumgartner lives it as a skydiver who has flown across the English Channel and dreamed of even bigger feats. For five years, he has been training with a top-notch team from Red Bull on a project dubbed Stratos – Mission from the Edge of Space.

Baumgartner plans to ride in a capsule carried aloft by massive helium filled to 120,000 feet. Only one person has done this before - the legendary Air Force Col. Joe Kittinger in 1960.

The balloon carrying Baumgartner aloft is incredibly large and just as fragile. It can't launch with winds greater than 6 mph, so the team's meteorologist watches, and waits, for fair weather.

If this ambitious mission succeeds, Felix Baumgartner will break several records:

First Human to break the speed of sound in in free-fall (Mach 1 more than 690 mph)
Highest free-fall altitude -120,000 feet (Joe Kittinger hit 105,000 feet in 1960)
Highest manned balloon flight at 120,000 feet (previous record was 113,740 feet in 1961)
Longest free-fall (Baumgartner's team expects 5 minutes, 35 seconds; Kittinger's was 4 minutes, 36 seconds in 1960)
Largest manned balloon in history at 550 feet tall, with a volume of 30 million cubic feet

Red BullFelix Baumgartner of Austria seen during a... View Full Size Red BullFelix Baumgartner of Austria seen during a test jump from a helicopter for Red Bull Stratos, a mission to the edge of space to break the speed of sound in freefall, in California City, California, on April 13, 2009.

Dr. Jonathan Clark is the chief medical officer for this effort. He is a former NASA flight surgeon currently with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute and can recite the risks of this ride in his sleep. This, he says, is a very hostile environment. "We are using a helium balloon to get to the stratosphere, but to get there we have to transit the death zone."

It is dangerous. Every member of the team acknowledges the threats of extreme cold, extreme temperature fluctuations, the possibility of an uncontrolled flat spin that could hit 220 rpm, drogue chute failure, spacesuit puncture, life support systems failure.

I can't wait to see this - theoretically they can break the sound barrier, but I am sure there are many complex explanations as to why everything must be absolutely spot on. I would absolutely love to do a HALO jump, but this is taking it to another extreme, I really hope that he manages to break the sound barrier, and come out of it without any injuries which are a possibility.

He's in some good hands though, the previous record holder Kittinger will be the only one talking to him on the ascent/descent so he's in the best of hands there. I would love to see the view from the stratosphere with my own eyes. It must put things into perspective.

I can't wait to see this - theoretically they can break the sound barrier, but I am sure there are many complex explanations as to why everything must be absolutely spot on. I would absolutely love to do a HALO jump, but this is taking it to another extreme, I really hope that he manages to break the sound barrier, and come out of it without any injuries which are a possibility.

He's in some good hands though, the previous record holder Kittinger will be the only one talking to him on the ascent/descent so he's in the best of hands there. I would love to see the view from the stratosphere with my own eyes. It must put things into perspective.